“The purpose of the MFP was to support the regular police in combating organized crime, especially savage, motorized criminal biker gangs and marauding punks, and act as a highway patrol on the Transcontinental Highways.”
—Main Force Patrol, The Mad Max Wiki
Ever see the first Mad Max (1979)?*
*Please excuse my use of a Mel Gibson-led franchise to make a point. I don’t like him either but damn if these movies written by a Doctoral candidate on a lark to explain natural resources and death economies aren’t just the perfect synopsis of my T‑shirt wearing, long haired, station-wagon driving self at the moment.
Ugh, are we done yet?
Look, for what it’s worth Tom Hardy’s performance was better! Mad Max #4 – Fury Road (2015) – was instantaneously the best action film of its year and the best Mad Max film by far.
But #1, serves the example better.
We still here? Good.
So, in Mad Max #1 society is crumbling.
V8s are legend, gas is in short supply, and the freeways are sheer terror.
The film then cuts to this idyllic house along the lake – it’s Max’s.
His wife and young child live in this dreamscape of a domicile.
It’s just jarring to see scenes of human misery while then cutting to this house along the lake.
The film works like this:
road:
biker gang rapes and pillages a small town.
lakeside house:
“Oh, the television signal is blurry.”
road:
Max finds an emaciated victim.
lakeside house:
“Where’s my picnic blanket?”
And this film in its effortless genius eventually marries the road and the world of the lakeside house.
People die on both sides, and eventually Max just drives away.
He couldn’t live both lives … but he wanted to.
It’s almost as if the character was unwilling to move the plot so it just blindsided him.
What else can he do but go back to the road after the lakeside house is gone?
Subsequent Mad Max movies suffer from this lack of duality.
Except for #4, holy shit, he actually fixes shit in #4.
OKAY, MY Point:
2020 is all about working on the road while retiring to our safe lakeside houses.
Soon, and I mean before you’re ready, the road will be at your door.
I know this because my lakeside house burnt years ago. All I have is the road. Yes, I’m profoundly broken, all I can do is drive toward the sun.
Aren’t I rugged?
In the post apocalyptic timeline of Mad Max I’m probably at #3, Thunderdome (1985).
I’m gray and I actually roll with chaos.
I haven’t been to a picnic since the 1990s and my friends never invited me over to their gender reveals.
So excuse me when I park near your lakeside houses. I really like the view and I just need a nap.
I’d never settle where you live though. I know the plot of this whole thing is going to wreck your aluminum siding.
I just want to move forward.
See you at #4. Bring water.
I won’t need to go to court.
They’ll just get free shit.
Cuz I’m an idiot who uses big words they couldn’t understand.
Who needs sleep and money right?
Point is edits are expensive.
Lesson learned.
I don’t know, lol, I don’t mind debasing my self for a modicum of gratitude or income.
Maybe it was being raised by immigrants.
Maybe it’s American in the worst way.
All I know is I like a pat on the back for work I like doing.
I don’t really expect a lot and I’m not surprised when people let me down.
Jesus, none of this is healthy.
—louis hernandez
Flommist Louis Herdandez is obsessed with going Bauhaus and becoming The Machine. Preferably a drill press. Copyright © 2020 Louis Hernandez.
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